116 



The power was undoubtedly hypnotism. The sensation produced was evi- 

 dently that of hypnotic influence. 



Once while I was attending one of these shaker meetings one of the 

 actors was hypnotized. This was February 16, 1909. He had been stand- 

 ing with hands extended outward and upward for more than an hour 

 while the shakers were dancing around him like the waves surging around 

 a rock at sea in a stormy time. He was a novitiate at least for that night. 

 He was trying to get the "power." He got it. He jumped up and down 

 and stamped the floor in a circular movement, then for some minutes while 

 his hands whirled, gyrated and his muscles quivered and jerked in a horri- 

 ble manner. So hard did he stamp that he broke a hole through the floor. 

 Soon he threw his hands up over his head and fell heavily to the 

 floor. As he did so his muscles quivered as though he were in the dying 

 stage. His flesh then became rigid. At this climax his pulse ran down 

 to 57 ; five minutes later it was up to GO. ITien as the spell was being 

 broken twenty minutes later, it ran up to K!. The spell lasted forty min- 

 utes. Some of the Indian.s were scared, thinking the novitiate was clymg, 

 and rushed out of the hall. The performance over him was a complete 

 hypnotic performance. The ustial mode of removing hypnotic power was 

 used. Hands were rubbed down his body and then the power thus gathered 

 would be hurled to the four winds by a slapping, vigorous sliding of the 

 hands across each other. When the "power"' Mas removed so that con- 

 sciousness was restored, the novitiate entered the dance Aigorously again. 



Effect of Shakerism upon the actors : The terrible shaking that has 

 been mentioned here and in the previotis article is bound to undermine the 

 health of any person who will partici;iate in it. Besides, the lieating up 

 of one's self as is done in the shaker halls and then the going out of doors 

 immediately afterwards, tend to the giving of colds to the participants, 

 especially in the winter months. This undoubtedly, will lead to pneu- 

 monia, consumption and death to many. Again, the horrid wrying and 

 contorting of the faces will catise them to be wrinkled premattu'ely. 

 The muscle-quivering and the hypnotic influence is bound, also, to have a 

 damaging effect upon the nerves and mind of the actor ; this dance is 

 kept up all day every Sunday and from three to four hours every Thursday. 

 Furthermore, in the doctoring of the sick the shakers are fanatical in the 

 belief that sliaking over tl'.e pati;'iit will cure It. "All shake — no medicine" 

 has killed many an Indian and will in time decimate the tribes holding^ 

 such beliefs. 



